On Thursday May 27th, web developers from all over Canada will be coming together to talk about the ever evolving web, discover new platforms, take part in a codefest & network with some of the best web developers in the country! With Keynote speaker Joel Perras, core developer of CakePHP and sessions including: SEO for dynamic websites, Building in HTML5, CoApp, Cross Platformed Solutions for Social Media & Cloudy with a Chance of Interoperability – this conference is one that should be of interest to all of you looking to build the ultimate web experience for your clients. Check out the website for more information here. Registration ends May 20th.

The Applied Arts Design & Advertising Awards Call For Entry is currently open. It will be judged by an panel of highly regarded industry professionals, in a rigorous process developed over our two decades of awards experience. All entries must be received by May 7, 2010. Eligible for entry are all forms of commissioned, published, unpublished and personal work created between May 2009 and May 2010. The competition is open to entrants from any country. For more information, a complete list of categories and to access our online entry form, please visit AppliedArtsMag.

The FITC Toronto 2009 officially ended yesterday. Congrats to the award winners. My overall experience was pretty good. I’ve attended FITC in the past four years and they are getting better and better. This year, I’ve learned a lot of new things about Flash, particularly the multitouch Flash content and mobile Flash. In this post, I’m going to share my thoughts on some of the presentations that I’ve attended.

Last week I talked about Cross-Browser CSS Gradient. Today I’m going to show you how to put the CSS gradient feature in a good practical use. Check out my demo to see a set of gradient buttons that I have created with just CSS (no image or Javascript). The buttons are scalable based on the font-size. The button size can be easily adjusted by changing the padding and font-size values. The best part about this method is it can be applied to any HTML element such as div, span, p, a, button, input, etc.

Being a specific form of art, typography has always been coherent with the general progress of art and cultural growth of humanity. This is why the history of western typography reflects the development of art in Europe to a considerable degree. The epoch of Roman Empire, Renaissance, Baroque, and the art of Industrialization period – we can track the traces of each stage of art development in the design of particular typefaces, born during a respective period of time. In fact, the whole history of western typography has always been about the development of new trends, and the revival of ancient techniques of writing and lettering designs.

The CSS gradient feature was introduced by Webkit for about two years but was rarely used due to incompatibility with most browers. But now with the Firefox 3.6+, which supports gradient, we can style create gradient without having to create an image. This post will show you how to code for the CSS gradient to be supported by the major browsers: IE, Firefox 3.6+, Safari, and Chrome. Also, check out my updated dropdown menu (demo) using CSS gradient.

Website design, development and copywriting can be done faster, more accurately and creatively with the help of Lean manufacturing techniques, which help companies around the globe accomplish industry-leading results. Lean is a production practice that helps identify resource use that’s not directly tied to creating value for customers, so it can be eliminated. In essence, Lean preserves value with less work. Some common objectives Lean aims to achieve: